


Backyard Hellfire

by SalParadiseLost



Series: The Demon in the Details [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bonfire, Brotherly Bonding, Brothers, Damian gets a hug, Demons, Family Feels, Fire, Fireproof Demons, Fluff, For Fun and Brotherly Bonding, Gen, Human Bruce Wayne, Human Dick Grayson, Incubi, Incubus Tim Drake, Luciferean Damian Wayne, Lucifereans, Pyromania, Succubi & Incubi, incubus Jason Todd, with just a little bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29688555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalParadiseLost/pseuds/SalParadiseLost
Summary: Dick came downstairs to steal some of Tim's coffee. He didn't expect to see their backyard engulfed in a raging inferno with Jason looking like a pyromaniac.He should probably be more concerned about that last bit, but if being a big brother to demons was teaching him anything, it was to expect the unexpected.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Series: The Demon in the Details [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2151114
Comments: 67
Kudos: 448





	Backyard Hellfire

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a little story that made me laugh. Of course, then I had to add some angst to it. Just a little bit, though, a sprinkle.
> 
> This story comes after "Let the Devil In" and introduces some of the themes I'm going to explore further in the next longer style story. 
> 
> Thanks for checking it out!

Dick loved his brothers. He really did.

He just didn’t understand them sometimes.

Dick took a sip from his mug, staring out the window yet again. He had been looking out it for the last ten minutes, and he still couldn’t bring himself to fully look away.

“Tell me again, what are they doing?”

Tim hummed from his place at the kitchen table. He shuffled some papers and took an unconcerned glance out the window.

“It’s a bonfire,” he said succinctly as he turned to the laptop. His fingers steadily thumped a rhythm out on the keyboard. The room had gotten dim and Tim was light up from one side by the artificial blue of his laptop and the other side by the gold wash of firelight. It created a jarring effect on his pale skin.

Dick lifted an eyebrow, but Tim didn’t look up from the computer to see it. “And Damian is in the middle of it.”

“Damian is in the middle of it,” confirmed Tim, his fingers flying.

Dick turned back to the window, watching as Jason added another couple logs around the boy burning at the center. He looked like a psycho, smiling evilly as his chucked more wood into the pile, and laughing manically as the fire rose into the night.

He wondered if he should be unsettled by how much joy Jason was getting by lighting his brother on fire.

Damian, to give him credit, looked serene as if he was some kind of tiny Joan of Arc.

Dick couldn’t help the instinctive panic that rose when he saw the boy engulfed in flames, even though it was clear how comfortable he was in it. He gulped, forcing himself to settle his human nerves.

His brothers were demons. They worked different.

That didn’t stop Dick from worrying…

Or flashing back to another body… broken and burnt… angles on the limbs all wrong…

Not all demon species were fireproof.

Dick shook himself, forcing his mind away from the memories. Jason was alive. Jason was here.

Jason was…

Laughing maniacally into the night?

“Did they say why…?” Dick hedged, watching as Jason’s teeth flashed in the firelight. Gods, their backyard looked like a horror movie.

“I asked, and Jason said, and I quote, ‘demon things’”.

Dick couldn’t help a small chuckle. “Shouldn’t that mean you’re out there too, baby bird?”

This finally made Tim finally pause in his typing. He turned slowly, looking out at the window to where Jason was cackling, and then he gave Dick the driest look he had ever received.

“No.”

Dick choked on his chuckle as it became a full-blown laugh. He thumped his own chest, shakily putting his mug down as he tried to control his laughter.

When he could finally breathe evenly, he looked but up to his little brother with a grin. “Come on, Timmy, you need to go join the demon activities.”

Tim frowned, scrunching his nose like an affronted kitten. “I was raised human. I don’t _do_ demon activities.”

And didn’t that make Dick’s heart hurt a little bit.

He came around the table, snapping the laptop shut and narrowly missing Tim’s fingers. The boy had to pull them back quickly with a squawk and gave Dick a furious glare. If looks could kill, Dick would already be in the ground by now.

Dick grabbed him by the elbow, basically pulling him off the chair and out the side door. Tim obviously hated every minute of it, which made Dick distinctly feel like a mother about to drop off her kid at kindergarten.

Tim pouted and mumbled “I don’t want to do demon things”, which only made him seem more like a petulant child.

Dick’s smile widened and he dragged Tim over to the horror set that had swallowed up their backyard.

The smell of smoke instantly filled his chest and the glow of fire gilded everything in golden heat. The bright tongues of flame cut through the night sky like a knife.

The bonfire was bigger than he thought it was and as he came closer, he realised that it must have been at least ten feet tall, maybe fifteen.

“Holy sh… Jason!” He barked, as he watched his little brother chuck even more wood into the flames.

Where had he even gotten pallets?

The incubi paused, turning slowly to face the newcomers. He made a menacing silhouette, fire backlighting his hulking frame and eyes glowing with pure glee. He smiled, fangs flashing in a vicious grin.

“Hey Dickiebird,” he said casually, his voice dipping into thick Crime Alley accent. “Came to barbeque another bird?”

Dick huffed, pushing Tim further on even if the boy mumbled about how stupid this was.

“No, I like this one raw,” he said lightly, coming to Jason’s side.

His brother was slicked with sweat, but Dick didn’t pull away when the demon casually rubbed against his side like a cat. The bond between them lit up with a happy thrum. The demon was practically purring, and it would have been sweet if he didn’t have a lunatic gleam in his eyes.

Jason finished with him and went to rub on Tim, who did try to shove him away with a yelp.

“No,” he shouted, “get your smelly face away from me.”

Which Jason also took as a challenge, because it was Jason.

“What? I smell?” Jason chuckled, and his smile quickly slid into a smirk. “Don’t you wanna hug me though, Tim?”

Tim tried to scramble away, but Jason tackled him to the ground like a linebacker, The kid didn’t even stand a chance. Dick watched happily as their little brother frantically tried to escape a grinning Jason.

It was a sight he would have thought impossible if you had asked him a year ago.

He looked back up, eyes trying to find the tiny figure in the fire. “Hey, Dami, you good in there?”

“Of course, Grayson.” Damian’s voice a little bit slurred, as if Dick had just woken him up from a nap. “A Luciferean is always comfortable in a flame.”

Dick laughed again, even though he didn’t understand how anyone could fall asleep in a raging inferno. “Good to hear, kiddo.”

“I am not a kid,” Damian said with a tiny growl that lacked any real heat behind it.

This wasn’t exactly what he expected when he came downstairs to see what his brothers were doing, but he couldn’t help himself from smiling, nonetheless. That was one of the perks about demon brothers, they constantly kept him on his toes.

Dick opened his mouth to say something, but was cut off with a furious shout.

“JASON PETER TODD WAYNE. CARE TO TELL ME WHY THERE’S A BONFIRE IN MY BACKYARD?”

Jason had Tim pinned to the ground and seemed to be mid-shoving Tim’s face into the grass, but instantly froze at his Head’s voice. The demon’s spine went instantly straight and he perked like a dog.

From his position near the ground, Tim snickered “ooh, you’re in trouble” and the tone was pure ‘obnoxious little brother’.

“Shut up, brat,” Jason said under his breath as he gave Tim one final hair ruffle.

Then he turned back to their father who was storming towards them like a dark hurricane. “How do you know it’s my fault?”

He gave Jason a flat look that rivalled Tim’s. “Is it not?”

Jason didn’t answer, which was, of course, all the answer Bruce needed. He looked he was about to burst a blood vessel, but instead of anger from the bond, Dick was getting was _pure exhaustion_ that almost made him burst out laughing.

He almost did laugh, but when Bruce heard the sound and turned his glare on him, Dick quickly disguised it as a cough. He looked at a small patch of grass that instantly became the most interesting thing in the world.

Bruce kept scowling, gaze flicking between all three of them, until his anger twisted into a heavy sigh. The man rubbed a hand at the headache that was inevitably forming between his temples.

“I’m going to ask this once: why?”

Tim struggled out of Jason’s grasp, abandoning him in Bruce’s gaze as he hid behind the man.

Jason didn’t even attempt to look ashamed. He grinned like the devil himself, firelight flashing off his teeth.

“Demon things,” he chirped, way too happy for someone who was caught in a Batglare.

Unfortunately, for Bruce, becoming immune to the Batglare was one of the first things a Robin learned.

“What kind of ‘demon things’?” Bruce ground out, frustration thick in his voice. It was a common excuse of Jason’s and one that Bruce could never directly refute. The little shit had gotten out of so much trouble through the years because of it.

Jason just smiled, not even caring that he was shaving a decade off his father’s life.

“The burning kind,” Jason answered simply, eyes glowing so much they rivalled the flames.

Bruce, finally looked past the incubus, only now noticing that wood wasn’t the only thing in the middle of the fire.

Dick felt the instant flare of _panic_ rip through all their bonds and he felt a little bad about not giving Bruce any prior warning.

Bruce had nearly had a heart attack the first time he saw Damian curled up in a fireplace (Dick had too, although his version had included more screaming). Dick had felt Bruce’s emotions, raw and full of a father’s fear for his child. The spine-chilling terror that he had lost another child. It hit him like a punch to the gut and had almost made him drop to his knees.

Dick knew what Bruce was feeling. He had the same instinctual fear that always came when he thought one of his brothers were in danger.

It was only human for him to worry, even when his brothers weren’t human.

“Hey, Chum,” Bruce said into the raging bonfire, underneath his voice was a tight line of tension. “Why don’t you come out now?”

Damian shifted inside the fire. Dick could barely make out his darkened figure among the embers and the flames. The boy slowly unfurled, and Dick recognised a yawn.

“Five more minutes?” he asked, for once actually sounding like his age. Dick watched Bruce’s worry become soft affection.

“Five more minutes, and why don’t we bring the flames down?”

“Okay,” Damian mumbled, waving a lazy hand at the fire around him. Dick watched as if, gently began to lessen, slowly becoming smaller until it was about the size of a campfire.

Damian remained curled up in the middle of it, looking more like a sleepy kitten than a highly trained baby assassin.

Dick had to physical hold himself back from cooing, and took some steps towards the comfortable fire. The ground around him was completely black, still letting out smoke, even though Damian had taken the fire away.

He stood over the fire, smiling down at his newest little brother. The kid had obviously fallen asleep again and embers glowing around red and yellow around the sleeping body. Dick briefly wondered how Dami made sure that his clothes didn’t burn also.

“Hey, kiddo, time to wake up.”

Damian hummed, but slowly rose. He blinked lazily, grumbling but slowly clamouring out of the flames.

A smile quirked on Dick’s lips, especially when it looked like Damian was about to nod off again.

He looked about to collapse, and Dick desperately wanted to wrap the boy in a hug. Lucifereans were like metal, though, they heated up with the fire and if Dick touched him now, he would get burned.

“Can you cool off for me, Dami? I’d like to give you a hug.”

Damian hummed, and then nodded, stumbling towards Dick.

The little demon basically collapsed in his arms, instantly curling into Dick’s chest. The boy was still hot, almost too much to touch, but Dick didn’t dare let go.

They had come so far with Damian. The little demon had started out like a terrified animal, frightened and lashing out at every moment. For weeks after Damian joined the pack, Dick hadn’t felt a single emotion from him that wasn’t covered in a layer of anxiety.

The boy had hesitated to approach them, flinching away from touch and constantly expecting people to hit him.

But slowly, ever so slowly, Damian began to warm up to them, figuratively and literally.

Now, Dick’s bond with him was bright, warm, and constantly flickering in his chest. It was different than Jason’s and Tim’s bond, which were much more steeped in emotions and constantly cycling through different feelings. Damian’s still had emotions, but to a much lesser degree, and all of them were accompanied by varying temperatures.

Damian was a being born of fire, and his bond reflected that.

Dick smiled, running a hand through Damian’s hair and brushing out some of the ashes in it. The boy’s chest vibrated with a purr and he nuzzled into Dick’s hand. He smiled, pushing _affection_ to Damian, and feeling the bond warm happily.

He stood, carrying the boy towards the others.

Bruce had this absolutely smitten look on his face and looked like his heart was about to burst. The bond was full of _love_ and _family_ and Dick couldn’t help but scoff a little at the huge sap.

Sometimes it was hard to believe that anyone thought Batman was a callous man who only worked alone. How the Justice League still thought Bruce didn’t have a family or a pack, Dick didn’t know.

Jason stepped forward, humming as he surveyed the child. He gently ruffled Damian’s hair, even when the small demon tried to push his hand away with a little grumble.

“Lucifereans. They are crazy, right?” Jason said, a ghost of a smile on his face.

Dick shifted the kid in his arms. “I promise I still think you’re cool too, Jason.”

The incubus snorted. “Oh, don’t worry. I know you know that incubi are the coolest.”

“Come on, boys,” Bruce’s voice called them back towards the house. Tim was already by his side, and Bruce had a hand on his shoulder. The smaller incubi was still smirking towards Jason.

“You’re still in trouble, Jay,” he said, obviously enjoying every moment of it.

Jason's face fell. “What? No? I was just being a good brother,” he tried to argue. Bruce was obviously trying not to smile but was failing at it.

The silence on the matter only seemed to make Jason nervous for the first time.

“Bruce? I’m not in trouble, right?”

“Not with me you’re not.” Bruce paused, finally allowing himself to smile. “But you’re going to be the one that has to explain to Alfred why there’s a huge scorch mark in the backyard.”

Dick laughed, even though Jason’s bond flared with _fear_.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed the story! I had fun introducing some more of the Luciferean species traits and just imagining Dami curled up in fire as comfortable as a cat. Poor Dick has a lot to handle with his brothers.
> 
> I really enjoy writing these kinds of "Dick is the one regular human between demon brothers" stories, so you'll probably be seeing more of them in the future. 
> 
> Well, that's all from me. 
> 
> You can visit my tumblr at [ SalParadiseLost ](https://salparadiselost.tumblr.com) where I post tumblr things and general writing musings. I occasionally post drabbles and cut scenes there. I also answer questions about this au, and who knows maybe you can have me write a snippet. 
> 
> Please leave a kudos and comment. Flattery gets you everywhere.


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